Improved device for raising sunken vessels



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE. i

GEORGE W. FULLER, OF CHELSEA, ASSIGNOR' TO HIMSELF AND PETER E. FALCON, OF COHASSET, MASSACHUSETTS.

IMPROVED DEVICE FOR RAISING .SUNKEN VESSELS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 49,342 dated August 8, 1865.

To all lwhom t may concern:

Be it known that I, GEORGE W. FULLER, of Chelsea, in the county of Suffolk and State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful mode or process of overcomin g the adhesion of a wrecked or sunken vessel to the mud or earth in which she may be embedded; and IV analogous circumstances many a Wreck has` been abandoned or deemed impossible to be raised which could have been easily saved had the cause of her remaining at the bottom of the Water been properly understood and my means ofovercoming that cause been employed. This cause is adhesion of the hull of the vessel to the mud or bottom on which such hull may rest, and in which it may be more or less embedded. Not onlyis the vessel pressed down upon such mud by the weight of herself and cargo, less the weight of the water displaced thereby, but by the pressure of the atmosphere on the surface embedded. As there can be little or no air between the mud and that part of the hull which may be sunk thereon, any attempt to raise the vessel oft' the mud must be resisted by the pressure of the atmosphere on the surface within the mud.

'Io overcome this suction of the vessel to thc mud is the object of my invention, which may be accomplished as follows:

A submarine diver should enter the hold of the vessel and bore a hole throlgh the hullas near to the keel as possible. After having done this he should, by means of a lr ent rod of iron passed through the said hull, form a chamber in the mud immediately contiguous to the hole and against the outside surface of the vessel. This chamber may be about twenty-four inches in diameter, and should be against the external surface of the vessel, or as close to the same as it may be possible to make it. Next, the implement forming the chamber should be Withdrawn from the h ole leading into such chamber, and the end of a pipe of a powerfulair-forcing apparatus situated above the surface of the Water should be fixed in thehole in such manner as to enable such apparatus or pump when worked to force air into the said chamber without any possibility of such air escaping backward therefrom through the hole. `This air so forced into the space or chamber in the mud will spread therefrom between the adhesive surfaces ofthe vessel and the mud, and to such extent as to effectually destroy or. overcome their adhesion and enable the air vessels, iioats, or pontons, or means used in elevating the vessel, to raise her to the top surface.

Practice has demonstrated the practicability and great advantage of` my invention, as by means of it I have successfully overcome the adhesion of an iron-laden vessel to the bottom or mud on or in which she reposed when submerged when I could not accomplish this by the pontons or-air-loats applied to and which were more than sufficient to raise her had there been no adhesion of the hull to the bottom or ground.

What I claim as my invention is- The mode, substantially as above described, ofovercomin g the adhesion of a submerged vessel to the mud or ground on which she may be deposited.

R. H. EDDY, F. REALE, Jr.Y 

